We Are The Dark
by you-killed-captain-clown
Summary: Loki wakes from being teleported to another world by a impossible man, who invites him to join his band of vengeful extraordinary men to conquer the Earth. But with the Avengers, Sherlock Holmes, the Guardians and the Doctor acting to stop them, and evil surfacing in the members of his group, things are a lot more complicated than it seems. Crossover with Sherlock and ROTG.
1. Loki

The smell of ozone was overpowering; it obliterated everything in an electric haze, and the trapped god gagged as he tasted blood dribbling from the ruptured vessels in his nose. He could not move, but for the spasms of his arms and legs. A cloud of black hair swirled weightlessly around his bare head - just as the unseen force had hit him he had removed his helm and placed it beside his prison bed - and even in the state of paralysis he was under the faint, whitish glow enveloping him could not hide the fluctuation of his skin from seamless ivory to rich, dark indigo patterned with Jotun tattoos.

He had learnt from the lengthy prison reading time he had been permitted that the tattoos were like fingerprints - each individual Frost Giant differed, and the most high-ranking of Jotuns were born with not only the most intricate on the flesh, but the engravings etched even underneath onto the organs pulsing with ice-veins inside. So it was no surprise that when the tattoos on his arms opened up into cracks covering his entire body that his heart also wrenched; as sudden as the blinding agony exploding inside him his locked jaw released, and Loki threw his head back and screamed as pain ripped through his chest and blotted out the world in an eruption of searing blue light.

* * *

The first noise that wafted into his ears was a steady, four-beat tapping - _tap tap tap tap, tap tap tap tap._

Consciousness was gentler returning than leaving. The void drifted slowly into bleary alertness, and when Loki experimentally licked his lips, the tingling it left was more ticklish than the burn of electricity. He began to realise he was prone on the ground, his cheekbone pressed into a hard, smooth surface and his limbs seemingly free...and, after quickly checking, still retaining every inch of his magic. Immediately, he siphoned off a tendril to strengthen his body, and could not repress an inner smile as power filled him like the soul of the god he was. Whatever creature had summoned him - for he now identified the sensation he had experienced as very concentrated teleportation - had made a very big mistake. Anger swelled inside of him as he curled his long fingers slightly, preparing them for combat. Woe betide the unfortunate man who had stoked the ire of Loki Laufeyson, rightful ruler of Earth, God of Mischief, Prince of Asg -

"But you're not _really_, are you?"

Loki torqued his body upward and whirled with supernatural speed, emerald cape swirling as it materialized around him and a snarl curling his mouth as twin bolts of pure energy crackled from his hands and surged towards the source of the voice in the corner of the room. Ecstasy throbbed in his outstretched arms as the feeling of using magic returned to him. His powers had been bound in the small cell he had in Asgard, and the plain prison garments of breeches and a leather shirt moulded into his striking green-and-gold armour around his muscled frame, elaborate, tooled gauntlets forming over his knuckles as he cut off the stream and straightened fully upwards from his crouch, the high windows of the opposite wall reflecting several rippling reflections of the tall, eerily beautiful god, garbed in full battle armour and looking as wrathful as an avenging angel.

Smoke billowed from the far corner where Loki had blasted it, and a shaking sound came wavering from beneath it - probably the wretched thing dying of its wounds. Loki took his eyes away from the scene momentarily as he glanced swiftly around at his surroundings. He was in some sort of abandoned ship, not unlike one that the Chitauri used, but less ugly and far more welcoming despite the thick layer of dust that coated everything and the absence of any sun shining through the windows. As he looked around, a sense of unease settled over him. How had anything drawn him from the impregnable jail of Asgard? And how had it had known what he had thought - and, more disturbingly, how had anyone outside the Royal Family of Asgard known of Loki's true parentage? The chill brushing up his spine hardened into pure fear as his ears adjusted to the undulating noise behind him.

That was no whimpering of a cowed creature. Loki turned slowly as the smoke cleared, and his skin prickled on the back of his neck. That was _laughter. _

The chuckling shadow sharpened into the figure of a man as it leaned off from propping a casual elbow against the wall, and as he drew forward Loki steeled himself to hold his ground. The man was of average height and size, with a slender, impish handsomeness to his sharp-featured face, and despite being shorter than Loki the languid grace in which he stood surrounded him like a magnetic aura and gave him the presence of a giant. He was utterly unscathed by the power of Loki's magic, which would've vaporized a small truck - his dark, tailored suit and tie was pristine, and his short brown hair and small, black, brilliant eyes were almost insultingly unburnt. He grinned, a quick, easy grin, and waggled his fingers in a mock 'hello'.

"How did you do that?" Loki whispered, unsettled. The man quirked a brow, and bounced a gold, alien-looking screwdriver he held in his left hand, flipping it up in front of Loki's face in answer. "Who'd have magic?" The man quipped, his British accent at odds with the otherwordly technology he brandished before him, and then slid it back into his jacket pocket. He stepped back, still grinning, and pushed his hands in his pockets as he began to walk calmly around the room.

"Now, as I was saying before you tried to disintegrate me - you're not REALLY a Prince of Asgard are you? You liar. Although," he added, unperturbed by Loki's narrowed gaze upon him. "That's a give, isn't it? God of Lies and Mischief and all. Well."

"Who are you?" Loki hissed between his teeth, and the anger in his voice was chilling. The impossible man stopped and turned, the expression on his face turning from teasing to deathly serious.

"I am the Master." The Master spread his arms wide, the simple gesture oddly regal. A smirk flickered across his lips. "And I'd like to talk to you about my Initiative."


	2. Jim

**Oh LAWD, 3 follows? *shriek* THANK YOU! I knew there were kindred spirits out there who recognized the potential of evil. Thank you, fellow devils.**

**So in the last chapter you got a taster of who the Master – he is, obviously, the man heading this mysterious dark project – is recruiting. I started off with one of my favorites, of course; LOKI. In this one is my next favourite, my darling little psychopath. I hope I've written him in character. It's awfully hard writing in the perspective of someone who's supposed to be DEAD…**

**Cap **

* * *

The little SHIELD agent had taken a long time to die, it would seem.

Jim Moriarty lounged back in his swivel chair, rocking slightly, throwing a jellybean backward into his mouth with every scream that came from the paneled room opposite in the dark basement beneath the Thames. The periodic cries of agony that escaped from the clouded glass cube, punctuated by the clotted rumbling of the dogs chained to the inside of the Fun Time chamber, was what he had timed his treats to. Blue squishy ones for whenever the dogs savaged a leg and the bound man gave a high, girly scream, red long ones that he could slurp like noodles whenever a canine growl and a human howl synchronized together, and, his favorite, chunky banana-flavoured bears that made his teeth tingle every time an organ ruptured and a beautiful spurt of blood hit the screen like spilt tomato soup.

Mmmm. Tomatoes. His favourite fruit. Or was it vegetable? Jim mused this over as the gurgling of a dying man faded to empty silence. Either way, it had a spiky green leafy thing on top, just like Sherlock. Then a horrible thought occurred to him.

"Sherlock doesn't have green CURLS!" Jim epiphanized suddenly, throwing the jellybean bag aside. The _outrage. _How DARE that sexy little detective have _brown hair._ It almost made him want to march up to where he thought he didn't know he was hiding in Henry Knight's basement and DEMAND him to confess.

_Guilty, guilty, guilty, _Jim thought gleefully, thinking of all the wonderful scenarios in which Sherlock fell to his knees and begged forgiveness. _Naughty little Sherlock. Daddy's not happy. _

Somehow, Jim found that he was bounding down the stairs to where the torture chamber was, absently waving the men to pull back the massive Rottweilers away from their meal. His huge, black eyes glinted, serpentine features falling into dark seriousness as he walked leisurely up to the door. _No. Daddy is NOT happy, Sherlock, dear, love, sweetheart, lovie duckkk. _Jim raised his hand to knock politely on the door, before realizing that he was wearing Vivienne Westwood and that suit sleeve was NOT one he could afford to stain on the rills of blood dripping from the inside, before skipping the formalities and hopping casually over a big puddle of the stuff to confront the corpse twisted up in its insides on the floor. He amused himself drawing a smiley face with the squishy grey brain in the far corner, before tilting his head to observe his most recent _target._

He had an unremarkable face, from what was left of it, wearing a cheap black suit and no distinguishing indicators to his position in the spy world. _This ain't no Jimmy Bond, _the voice of a black woman said in his head, before Jim realized that HIS name was Jim, and a few more minutes were spent pretending to shoot the smiley face brain drawing on the floor from behind the shelter of the corpse. He WAS a little giddy today, Jim grinned, skipping out of the Fun Time room. But that was mostly due to his new best friend.

Jim's smile stretched from ear to ear at the thought of his _new friend. _He had visited him in the black place beyond the grave, a place Jim always fondly thought of as the pub of Hell where he would eventually meet Sherlock, shake his hand like he promised – he wasn't always a bad boy, after all – and remark on the fineness of the flames consuming their bones to dust. But his new friend had gone there and pulled him back, pieced up the bits of his skull and resurrected him right back together without so much as buying him dinner first. And as he walked down the long corridor, up to the hatch that led out to their meeting place beside the Thames, Jim felt that same exhilaration fill him as it did when he first spoke to him, down in the dusty depths of an old airship.

_"Got a job for you, Jim Moriarty," The man sang, the one who was very much not a ghost or a dead zombie, or if he was had no interest in his brain. Jim felt his very real hand, the hand that pulled a trigger and made his last image of Sherlock a wonderful red one with his gorgeous face falling to pieces, and pulled that hand to his tie and straightened it. _

_"Depends what it is, handsome," he drawled, and the man smiled with so much cheekiness in his smile it was like looking into a mirror. "See, I appreciate you bringing me back from the dead and all, but…" Jim shrugged his shoulders, rolled his head on his shoulders. "I really got nothin' left to live forrr. My Sherlock is dead."_

_The man pouted, actually pouted, and then grabbed his arm and took him through a whirling vortex of swirling time to where a building, a familiar building, loomed with a very alive Sherlock sneaking out the back door with a bloody fake-Sherlock splayed at the front. "Is he now?" the man purred behind him. And all Jim could think was CHEAT._

_"He is, isn't he?" the man said, this man who could walk him back through time and could read his mind, apparently (oh the fun he'll have there), and this man who showed him that all of it, all that flirting and playing and the final problem, the problem that he could've solved and died with a smile of on his face if Sherlock had played FAIR, was pretty much the biggest porker ever as Sherlock Holmes was still ALIVE. Jim vaguely pressed down the FURY THE ANGER THE ROARS inside of him, and swiveled on his polished Italian heel to lean into that grinning face. "What kind of job are you suggesting?"_

_"A revenge job," the man said, and his fingers came up to smooth the skulls on Jim's tie. "One where you pull a few strings for me, where you kill a few people and join a few of mine and you slice up this world to me, and in return…" _

_The man winked his eye, and they were standing in front of the universe, surfing on a star, watching the galaxies swirl like dancers on a ballroom floor. The man – the Master, a voice rippled inside his head – took his hand, poured power in it and made his mind explode with madness, and with a twitch of their twined fingers the blue and green pretty little planet bobbing in front of his very eyes was consumed by flames. "I'll make sure you're never bored," the man whispered in his ear, and Jim tilted his head back, and LAUGHED. _

Jim slid back the bolt as the labyrinth The Master had built for him closed up behind the hatch he had just shut, and as he turned into the night air the Master was there, inches away, took his hands, put them on his waist. Jim gave a chuckle as they began to turn to invisible music beside the river, the confetti of stars above shining on his Master's still, content face. He no longer cared if whatever sanity he had left this man had stripped away when he held Jim in front of the Untempered Schism; all that mattered was those eyes staring into his, promising whatever he wanted if only he would ask, filling is head momentarily with the drum beat that his Master marched to, day and night.

_You and Sherlock, Sherlock and you, _Jim sang along silently as the drumbeat became louder. _All that you'd ask, and all that you'll give me. _

The Master stopped as the drumbeat receded – he could only share it briefly, as powerful as Jim's mind was - letting the criminal go with a soft whisper of his gloves sliding against his jacket, and they both looked in mutual, comfortable silence at the rippling river below, admiring their images bouncing back at them – the taller figure of Jim, figure as svelte and supple as the winding water, and the other of the Master, his coat upturned against the cold and his face contemplative above the collar. "I found Loki," he said, eventually, and Jim raised a shaped eyebrow.

"And is he going to help?"

The Master smirked then, his soundless confidence affirmative, and Jim felt his own lips quirk. Sometimes, it felt like half their conversations happened in their heads. _That can be arranged,_ The Master said playfully, and Jim responded with a mental image of the SHIELD agent, writhing on the white floor. Jim felt the touch of the Master's vicious grin without seeing it on his face, the electric brush of his consciousness buzzing, and then he probing question – did he find what he wanted?

"Yes," Jim said, and with the air of pulling the proverbial curtain from the stage, flourished in the air from inside his jacket a long, narrow piece of wood, the colour and texture of a solid shadow with cracks running down the surface. The wide, vast moon above caught on the edge, illuminating it as to what it was; a piece of a bed slat, the seemingly innocuous object that all of SHIELD had tried to hide and that one, unfortunate agent had paid for with his insignificant life. The Master's eyes widened, and he touched it with almost reverence. "The key to nightmares," he breathed, and even at the touch of his light finger a sprinkling of fine particles rubbed from the wood, trickled down to the yellow grass of the riverbank. They blended in with the night-dark soil – a shifting trail of sand. Black sand.

_Pitch_-black sand.

* * *

**Well, you don't have to be a consulting detective to figure out who the NEXT recruit is. **

**Please, please, PLEASE REVIEW!**

**Cap **


	3. Martha

**ASDFJKLAD;LFJ THANK YOU REVIEWERS! YOU'RE AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL AND YOU FOLLOWERS TOO, YES YOU. FOUR FOR YOU. **

**Thank you so much for your amazing revieewwss! I hope that this new chapter isn't a filler one, but I'm newly inspired by the feedback I've been getting. Y'all, you're great.**

**Keep on rollin'. **

* * *

Martha Jones danced, absently, to the summer music trickling with the sound turned down from the wall-set radio in her little kitchen, feet bare and sliding on the lino as she made a late-night snack in her complaining, clunky oven. Well, it was Martha _Smith _now, but she'd been Martha Jones when she'd walked the Earth in the Year of the Master, and she'd been Martha Jones when she'd walked out of the TARDIS, so it stood to reason that when Mickey Smith got down on one knee and tipped half a glass of good wine onto himself in the back-room he had fixed up romantic in her second year at UNIT, she was Martha Jones five weeks later when she'd walked down the aisle beside her beaming father and Mickey had made it official with a band of gold on her ring finger.

Martha rolled it with familiarity between her thumb and fingertip, thinking with a sudden wash of loneliness of her husband, away on one of the frequent side-scopes that UNIT paid well for – the money they needed, but to the cost of Mickey's slumped shoulders as he snuggled down beside her and wrapped his arms increasingly tighter around her waist. He had grown, in those nights, to have the look of something haunted about his eyes; like the homeless man on the street corner who she made a point of giving a tenner or two to every day or so. Before she'd done it because the unwashed hair and patches on his coat were enough to make anyone feel pity. Now, it was because the pale eyes scrutinizing her above the scarves were sometimes frighteningly similar to the ones she looked into across the pillows.

She sighed, daydream ended on a sour note, and thought guiltily of the envy she sometimes felt whenever he got the call. Mickey had made sure she need never enter that field again – but to the woman who had freed the world and had her name sung through the ages, on different continents and different worlds and a different universe; well, she could see why the Doctor avoided being domestic.

There was a newspaper folded on the marble desktop, and to distract herself she picked it up, scanning it with disinterest. A new political figure in town, some disturbance in Somerset, a scattering of thunderstorms in the north-east. She turned to page eight and saw an article still dragging on about the Sherlock Holmes incident, despite the famous death being at least two years old. The grainy picture depicted the 'faux detective's' partner, a short serious man who looked more suited to crocheting than crime-fighting, walking out of a therapist's office with weariness etched into his every feature. Martha felt a pang of sympathy for him. Although she was undecided on the whole scenario (she still had some friends in UNIT, who couldn't find any records on the guy) the medical doctor in her knew the effects of a friend's suicide on the psyche, especially close ones. And when Sherlock had been in the media for more positive reasons, it didn't take a rocket scientist to notice the occasional twine of their fingers together when pushing through the crowds. She lay the paper down, checked the oven, and then looked out the window.

It was a nice night outside, a few pale clouds scudding around a smooth, inky-blue sky, not quite black even at 10.00 pm, but it was a good night to manage accounts, so she turned the heat down on the dial and pulled out the slim, standard UNIT issue sim-screen pad of expenses they kept in the forks drawer and settled down in the fold-away deck chair outside to watch the sun disappear, and soon her slender, toned hands, matching the rigorously exercised state of her body, blurred across the screen. The music was stuttering now inside, getting into the dubstep crowds of the late night. She very deliberately ignored it.

She slid through the first spreadsheet screens of prosperous freelance work – six years since she had last fired a gun, but Mickey's desk job as a production manager paid the bills and it was for the greater good, really – and stopped, fondly, on the substantial gap that their small, pretty house had caused, the paint green because of a copper imbalance in the bricks or something ludicrous like that; the house was just old, and creaked, and it was a golden deal for something they could afford and a stretch of their combined expenses, seeing as most of their money was spent on a security wall of alien tech so strong it had re-routed satellites – and a few innocent tourist space-cruisers – right off the whole area of North Yorkshire. Martha had said it was too much, but Mickey was deliberately careful, especially since, excluding himself with his typical gallantry, it was _protection for two_ –

The screen in her lap had faded, dimming from her idle reverie, and as she looked down for a moment, in the reflection on the dark hologram surface, the image that had entered her mind was mirrored to her. Full lips, a high brow, large liquid eyes rimmed by long lashes, soft deep brown skin and, with her hair tied back, a haze of seemingly short black hair in tight curls covering the head. Her son, her little five year old Ben, the one she had sacrificed everything for and would do so again and again, guarded by invisible weaponry befitting alien royalty – Ben, gazed back at her, and there was such fear in his eyes her throat immediately seized.

She stood suddenly, sim screen dropping silently into the grass beyond the porch. That wasn't music stuttering inside. It was a child's whimpering.

Martha didn't know how fast she could move until she found herself, surprisingly, inside and at the top of their staircase, flying round the corner to where Ben's planet-papered room was next to theirs. There was a noise, a loud insistent noise coming from somewhere, and as she nearly pulled off the doorknob she realised it was her, going _Ben Ben sweetheart it's Mummy, Mummy's coming, Benny,_ and then she was inside the room and Ben was dead upright in bed, his nightlight switched off somehow, and the entire small space plunged in darkness. She saw the glint of his huge eyes as they opened, and saw her, and a shiver paralyzed her spine as he screamed.

She fumbled for the light cord, pulled the grinning monkey tag, and the amber glow flooded the room so fast it was if it knew. Ben was shaking, his small body covered entirely in sweat. He was looking at her properly know, and when he started to cry and reach out his arms Martha gathered him to her so closely and firmly she was sure he couldn't feel her trembling a little as he sobbed his terror out. Martha rocked him, soothing him, and as he started to hiccup into calm her mind was buzzing with an explanation for her son's night terrors.

Ben's nightmares had been getting worse since Mickey started to accept more scopes, to fund them all. He was small for his age, shy around people, spoke quietly but often with confidence. And he was...different.

It was something they had loved about their little trooper, his imagination. They never told him anything wasn't true, and had answered truthfully to his questions when he'd seen his dad going away for days. Therefore, he knew about aliens. But Ben believed in other things, things he believed they couldn't see. Things like the Tooth Fairy and Santa, a boy who came to his window sometimes and drew snowflakes on the glass, a round gold man riding an aeroplane made of sand, a six-foot rabbit Ben often corrected was just the Easter Bunny, not a rabbit. But what frightened Martha, frightened her in the part of her that knew of the norms of child psychology, were the _other ones. The Boogeyman,_ Ben had once whispered, but he'd always stayed at the back of the room, dormant, not even appearing if the cut-out comet nightlight was on.

And the Boogeyman wasn't the only one. Some time at the beginning of last year, Ben had had one of his episodes. He'd woken up gibbering that New York was on fire, and that the blue reindeer man was going to kill them all. She'd shushed him, cuddled him, put it down to too much television. But the next month she'd seen the news. The flames that burnt in the streets of New York. The Chitauri, aliens long outlawed from Earth by Queen Victoria herself at the start of Torchwood, spilling from the skies. And, she recalled with a shudder, the man, or god, behind it all. The reporters talked of malevolent green eyes and exuberant armour, but all Martha could see were the horns, curving gold and high from his head. She hadn't yet seen the blue yet, but she guessed that that wasn't important.

"Mummy?" Ben breathed, his voice high and trembling, drawing back from the dampness of her shirt. Martha let him pull back to cradle his beloved, round face, smoothing the close-cut tightness of his short, springy hair. "Yes, darling?"

"Don't let the lord get Daddy." He whispered. Something kicked in Martha's head, but she quenched it, absorbed in the raw pleading in her baby's eyes. She brought his head to her chest, wrapped him as closely as she could so that every inch of his shivering frame was cushioned by hers. Lifting him in a standing embrace, Martha felt the air vibrate with the strength of her promise.

"I won't."

* * *

Mickey came early in the morning, when the curtains were beginning to grow blue around the edges. He coughed, shed his jacket and boots, and Martha heard him stop as he saw Ben, snuggled in his duvet in on his spot on the bed. She could almost hear the cogs whirring, the pieces being put together at the protective arm she had held around their son.

Then she heard his footfalls, weary but solid, the soft sound of a kiss on a forehead, and then felt the warmth shift from her grip as Mickey picked up the boy and left the room. The digital clock on the bedstead read 4.17. She counted down three minutes before Mickey climbed through the white sheets next to her. His hand came, as it always did, to brush her cheek, but froze as she shifted and faced him, falling to his side at her unfathomable expression.

"Martha," he said, and she had to stop herself reaching out to him at the roughness of his voice, the husky bone-tired gravel that now frequently accented his London tone. "Baby, what is it?"

"Ben had a nightmare last night. He thought you were in danger."

Mickey winced at the accusation, but Martha steeled herself. This was important. "It was a proper one, an episode. He was screaming. He – he screamed at _me._"

"He screamed at _you_?"

"No, no, I mean, the light wasn't on. He must've thought I was whatever was tormenting him in his dream. Or, tormenting you." Martha felt desperation enter her voice, and her fists clenched beneath the blankets. "_He's five,_ Mick. What could he have dreamt of that would've disturbed him so badly?"

There were thick, deep lines around Mickey's eyes, and they were deepening as the question hung in the air. Although Ben knew of the alien world, they made a point not to involve him in any way with it. Martha did reach for her husband then, and Mickey fell willingly into her arms. "What did he say?" Mickey said hoarsely. She saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed heavily. She tried to make her voice gentle, flippant; there wasn't anything to what he said, after all. It was just the fears of a child for the father that went away, surfacing in an over imaginative mind.

"He said, 'Don't let the lor –"

Deep in the recesses of Martha's consciousness, the thing that had been jumping around to be heard came to light with an emotion so heightened Mickey frowned as he saw her tense. No, no. It was impossible. She had never, ever, told anyone of her experiences in the Year that Never Was. Not even Mickey, never mind Ben. Lord. Lord. _Time Lord._ It was a coincidence.

_'"The blue reindeer man, New York, fire,"', and then Loki striding through the city the next month. Nothing is a coincidence. _

"Martha?" Mickey said, his voice coming as if from far away. Martha seized her husband by the wrists and drew her face up close. She could see the worry in his face, and forced herself calm.

"Mickey, Mickey _please_." She whispered. "Mickey, for the love you have for me, for our son, don't go to UNIT anymore. Just for a while, please, Mickey. For Ben. For _Ben."_

Mickey tried to speak, but she pressed herself into his chest, forcing him silent. He circled himself around her, and she could feel his confusion, his anxiety, the worry of the world, but she didn't care, not then. Until she was sure it was just a glitch in Ben's dreams, she was sure it was a slip of the tongue, she didn't want to risk it. She began to plead again but Mickey reassured her. He sounded shaky as he said it, but she felt a weight lift from her shoulders at his words.

"OK. OK. OK, Martha, Martha I promise. No more."

* * *

With the wind battering the lapels of his worn leather jacket, Mickey Smith felt his guilt like a stone in his throat as he walked to the UNIT headquarters after getting off the tube.

He'd left at about nine, when Martha had been truly asleep, and he'd dropped Ben off to pre-school himself. He'd noticed nothing unusual about their hug, their conversation, even how Ben met up with his friends by the bright yellow gate to look at trading cards; apparently a trend, even in pre-school. Ben had seen him looking and waved, and Mickey had waved back until Ben disappeared into the barn-style school and into the little classrooms in the back, out of his sight. His packed lunch, something Martha packed as a rule every morning, was sans an apple; Ben hated the things and Martha insisted, but Mickey hadn't had time for breakfast and his son had giggled conspiratorially as he pretended to trade the fruit under his coat for a chewing gum from Mickey's pocket.

The homeless man Martha frequented was strangely nearby the converted office buildings of the district UNIT HQ. He sat on the ground with a nonchalant air as Mickey walked past, mumbling something incoherent as he dropped a few pounds into the tin plate in passing, yet Mickey felt as if those intense eyes were watching him as he ascended the stairs to the building, gave Ritesh a grin as the IT manager came out with a donut and a coffee in both hands.

" 'lo, Mick. How's Martha?"

"Great, cheers Ritesh."

Ritesh beamed, and gestured with the coffee cup, but Mickey politely shook his head, leaving no impact on the wideness of his colleague's smile as he trotted down the road. At the mention of his wife, Mickey's resolve hardened. He could imagine the condescending look on old Cavendish's face when he handed in his resignation slip – 'The second time, eh Smith? You'll be back for more soon, you're one of our best ones, aren't you." _Aren't you,_ Mickey mocked in his mind, taking a moment to tie his shoelace on the rails leading to the entrance. It was true. With connections to the Doctor and marriage to one of his most capable companions, he was something of a VIP amongst the UNIT officers, and one of the most ruthless and strategical players in the alien crime-fighting world. Cavendish, an ex-military officer with more medals than the Olympic trophy cupboard, hated him. As a result, he was always given the distant ones, the ones with the smelliest or the most annoying, or the ones that drained him to the point where, after he sliced off their third head or threw a vial of vinegar over them, his hands shook when he collected his paycheck at the end of it.

_But no more,_ Mickey thought, straightening his shoulders. His role at the paper production company was not one to support them, but Mickey had learned the hard way of not listening to his wife when she was adamant. There'd be a way. There always was. Mickey smiled as he imagined waking Martha and telling her he'd resigned that morning, and it was this smile that was the first to go when he entered the lobby.

The second was his nerve. Everybody, from the false cheque-signing girls that masqueraded the buildings as a credit bank, to Ritesh's brother Arnand who was, if anything, more cheerful than his amiable brother, was dead. Gruesomely butchered. It had been a matter of seconds when Ritesh walked out. That meant that either he was in on it – or that that was all it took for one thing, one creature, to massacre a floor of the highest trained fighters probably in the UK with apparent ease. And without tripping the security protocols. Mickey's gorge rose as the smell of blood filled his nostrils – he stumbled back, and fell to his back. His eyes focused – and then widened. The bomb, rippling with magic and the technology of a Sontaran-level battle fleet, had been evidently dragged up from the secure chamber underneath the building. It was charged, the twin red globes of flickering energy darting above the extraction hatch showing it was one minute away from detonation. Mickey wanted to move, he really did, and he almost, almost got to the bottom of the steps when the third thing to go went.

Which was his arm.

The explosion was so immense, and so concentrated, it vaporized everyone in the vicinity of the building. But as Mickey's body was only partly out of the doorway, his limb was torn apart. He tumbled down the stairs clumsily, dropped to his knees, and his stomach emptied all over the stone. Then he began to scream.

* * *

A pair of shoes were standing in front of his head. They were scuffed, broken at the edges. Mickey, blinking hard, began to break from his unconsciousness.

Through the haze of pain, Mickey laboriously raised his head. The homeless man stood in front of him, but his rags were shucked, the grime sluiced off, his posture straightening to god-like height and subtle musculature. A face, cold and peerless as a glacier, began to emerge from beneath the scarves – it was like a distorted illusion, and as his bullets of blinding, heated red began to waver his vision he managed to glimpse the features – ethereally perfect, eyes shaded with death, white skin and dark hair and cheekbones sharp. His dying brain summoned up the name to the man emotionlessly watching him die, and immediately hundreds of TV reports and screaming newspaper headlines made his heart twist inside.

Something flashed, catching and spilling the late afternoon light across a shiny surface –_ a knife,_ something helpfully supplied him, but he was slipping and he no longer had a concept of terror. He would prefer _that _to the blood loss and draining to death that his body was going under. He would rather not think of his arm, chugging out into the filthy street and the massive shard of rusty shrapnel embedded into his elbow, and it was this that the man leant down and measured lightly, resting coolly below his throat, tip trailing down. He said something in a sibilant, velveteen voice, moved his lips, but Mickey heard nothing. He thought of Rose and the Doctor, at all that could've been, the running and the time-travelling and the living forever that he could've had if he had gone with them, but when he closed his eyes only Martha and Ben were there, crouching on the pier at Blackpool and looking at the crinkled map, feeding each other chips; Ben's small tough body was warm beneath the jacket he himself zipped up against the chill and there was the good tired of a long, happy day in his son's gentle, honey-coloured eyes, and this memory love was so sweetly unbearable it almost didn't hurt when he felt the blade slide into his skin.

It got swiftly worse; there was a lot of hacking and not enough energy to scream. But, after a few insane moments of agony a pair of strong arms lifted him, carried him into the empty sky, and when the black began to leak into the edges and he felt his body grow weightless, it blotted out the world.

* * *

***le gasp***


End file.
